Japanese asked what they think the strangest and most odd things about the nation’s capital are in comparison to the rest of Japan gave a list likely to be familiar to residents and visitors alike…
1. The rents are expensive
Average rents in Tokyo proper are literally double even those of Japan’s second city – $1,000 monthly for a 15m² single room apartment is not unusual in a central area.
2. There are too many people
Whilst central areas, especially major stations, are undeniably packed even by Japanese standards, many areas are deserted for much of the time, despite the obvious high density.
3. Parking costs are high
Practically any lot left vacant for any length of time will be in danger of sprouting a miniature rental car-park with exorbitant hourly rates – with a parking space a legal requirement for car ownership, and with apartment buildings and houses often lacking any parking, it is easy to see why car ownership is in rapid decline.
4. The air is dirty
Whilst perhaps dirty by Japanese standards, especially in central areas, compared to many car-centric western cities the air is quite clean and the traffic comparatively restrained – pollen allergies appear to be a far greater problem than smog.
5. The trains are packed
Rush hour trains are notoriously packed, or to put it another way train companies refuse to provide enough services – perhaps leading to Japan’s chikan culture.
6. Food is expensive
Expensive by Japanese standards, but perhaps cheap by European standards and exorbitant by US standards.
7. The water tastes nasty
The perception that Tokyo’s water supply is befouled and unsafe dogs the city in spite of all evidence to the contrary – many supermarkets even offer free supplies of filtered water as a draw to customers.
8. You don’t know the person who lives next door
Particularly in apartment buildings, inhabitants will in general go to some lengths to avoid acknowledging the existence of neighbours at all and new inhabitants will certainly not make their presence known with small gifts as some sources naively suggest is a current custom.
9. It’s noisy even at night
A constant stream of commuters, revelers and emergency services vehicles ensures the nights are never empty.
10. Even for the last train, there’s a rush
Sadly for the city’s otherwise 24/7 ambience, Tokyo’s ubiquitous mass transit system shuts down completely in the wee hours, leaving commuters/revelers/late night release queuers at the mercy of a horde of predatory taxi drivers…
“Strangest” are you fucking kidding me!? With the *possible* exception of 6-8, the exact same problems are the case here in London. Capital cities everywhere have this.
You know, you CAN fix half of these problems if you take a good look at problem nr. 2:
Currently, due to this planet’s way too high human population, China’s standard of work is starting to take place everywhere.
It is hard for you to find a job. Even if you do find, then there’s a hard competition for that place. If you do get in, then they will refuse to give you a permanent contract. You can not decide about your salary, they will do whatever they want with it, sometimes they won’t even pay you at all, pointing on (their lates global slavery scheme) recession. You are a moron, you will automatically believe them. You are actually so dumb, that you won’t even mind them having the biggest parties in the whole history of that company, while you started doing 4x more work just to get 30% lower salary, due to recession.
In your life, the same competition goes for every other element in lowest step of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. You find yourself barely filling the second step. The top 2 steps are unknown to you.
Now, if we’d cut global human population down to, lets say, 3 million people, yes Million, then, You could chose, how much You get payed, how much You work and if You work at all.
Now, what are you going to do about it? After 30 seconds of reading it, you go doing what you can do the best: hide yourself in booze and after 30 minutes, you have forgotten everything about this and insured, that you keep on being a good quality slaveworker, who will NEVER fight. The End.
At least you could do this much, that you stop multiplying like cockroaches. Have you heard about chemical castration?
well,at least not as half bad on what’s going on China.Multiply that 3 times what China’s offered to tourists.
Same as every other metropolis.
I found the gripe about the trains pretty strange. The trains run really frequently and more importantly on time. The sheer mass of people just means that even with trains coming every 5-10 minutes, rush hour trains are going to be crammed, there’s no way around that.
And saying that packed trains lead to more train molesters is really an oversimplification.